Seder Olam: C13- Akkad
- Albert Benhamou
- Mar 5
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 20
BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 13: Hebrew years 1440 to 1560 (2320-2200 BCE)
Introduction
Mankind became more and more corrupted with practices of abominations.
Akkad
By this time, several civilizations had established themselves across the known world: from Sumer in Lower Mesopotamia over the entire Fertile Crescent, across Canaan and down to Egypt, but also across Turkey into Greece and in the Aegean Sea with the Minoan islands. Further east, people had settled from the Hindus Valley until the last shores of China.
One of the early kingdoms was Akkad which became prominent at the time of Sargon (called of Akkad, not to confuse with a later Assyrian king called Sargon). The name Sargon is actually Sarru-kinu, which means "the true king". This shows that early kings had to build some legitimacy for their subjects.
One of his grandsons, Naram-sin, also ruled Akkad and conquered the Near-East kingdom of Ebla (present-day Tell-Mardikh in Northern Syria). When he took this important city, he erected a victory stele boasting that never since the creation of man had any king (before him) conquered Ebla! On this stele, Naram-sin is depicted like a giant, compared to his troops and his enemies, maybe as a proof of the existence of a race of giants (the Anakim) who are mentioned in the Bible as sons of the "fallen angels" (the Nephilim) and "men of renown" (Genesis 6:4).
The Land of the Amuru
The land which was at the west of the Euphrates was called Mar-tu in Sumerian texts. This name roughly encompassed the people who lived in Northern Syria until the Mediterranean Sea. The name later became Amuru in Mesopotamian texts, and this is confirmed by the Bible which names them the Amorites.
Chant to him the holy song, the incantation sung in its chambers -- the incantation of Nudimmud: "On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion, when there is neither dog nor wolf, when there is thus neither fear nor trembling, man has no rival! At such a time, may the lands of Šubur and Ḫamazi, the many-tongued, and Sumer, the great mountain of the Me of magnificence, and Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting, and the Mar-tu land, resting in security -- the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! (Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, lines 134-155, full text available online by clicking here.)
The Land of the sand dwellers
At the other side of the Fertile Crescent, the Egyptians invaded the Levant for the first time during the reign of Pharaoh Pepi I. In these times, the land that was to become known later as "Canaan" was inhabited by nomadic tribes that the Egyptian called "the sand dwellers". Here is a text extracted from the inscription in the tomb of the army official who led the campaigns by sea and by land, a man called Weni or Una:
The king sent me five times to crush the land of the Heru-sa and suppress these revolts with this army. [...] I went again with these troops, on ships, and crushed this land even until the remote locations [or marshes] of this region, north from the land of the Heru-sa. (Emmanuel de Rouge, Recherches sur les monuments qu'on peut attribuer aux six premières dynasties de Maspéro, 1866, French translation in pp. 117-144; English translation by Albert Benhamou)
The name Heru-sa has been understood as "Land of Sand-Dwellers" (in Old Egyptian, the word Heru means land, territory, realm). It makes sense because most of the region of the Levant, until Galilee, was covered either by sand (the Negev region and the southern coast) or marshes (the Sharon region). Below is the inscription seen in the tomb of Weni, with mention of the "Land of the Sand Dwellers" (source: Rouge, Emmanuel de, Recherches etc.). For a complete text in Hieroglyphs, see Grébaut, Eugène, Le Musée Egyptien, Volume I.
The sons of Noah
Just before the end of this generation, in year 1556, Noah had three sons successively:
And Noah was 500-years old, and Noah begot Shem, Cham and Yafeth. (Genesis 5:32)
It is the second instance of the Biblical text where the birth of three sons from one individual is mentioned. The previous occurrence was with Adam who begot Cain, Abel and Seth, at different times. Abel died and his life was therefore wasted. Cain turned to evil and brought wickedness to earth. Seth was the worthy one to survive, and he later had multiple sons and daughters from which only one lineage stayed in the path of God. Similarly, with Noah’s sons: Cham will choose a sinful path; Yafeth, despite his pleasant physical looks (his name means ‘beautiful’ in Hebrew), will bring evil kingdoms and wars; and Shem will give birth to multiple people from which a small portion would eventually continue in the path of God.
The order of their births is actually reversed from the order in the Biblical text: first Yafeth was born, in year 1556, followed by Cham in year 1557, and then by Shem in year 1558. This is derived from Genesis 11:10 that states Shem was 100-years old two years after the Flood. This points to Hebrew year 1558 as the birth of Shem.
The generations since Adam have now been: Adam > Seth > Enosh > Kenan > Mahalalel > Jared > Hanoch > Methuselah > Lemech > Noah > Yaphet, Cham and Shem.
Because of the worthiness of Shem, God spared His creation from total annihilation. Indeed, mankind got so evil that it made the entire creation unworthy. But one single person, who is righteous, has the power to change a divine decree.
The world had indeed become impossible for righteous people to live in:
And the Earth corrupted itself in front of God and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the Earth and behold, it was corrupted because it corrupted every flesh from its path on earth. (Genesis 6:11-12)
Corruption by mankind
Mankind ruined the earth and all the creatures that God created. In fact, there was no more mankind as the boundaries between man and beast became so blur that God had recourse to mention them as every flesh without distinction.
Looking at the two verses above from the Hebrew text of the Bible, in the first instance the Earth corrupted itself (תִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ) and then the Earth… was corrupted (הָאָרֶץ... נִשְׁחָתָה) and finally it corrupted (הִשְׁחִית) every flesh on Earth. This mention by three times of the same verb indicates that the corruption was total, complete, because this is the meaning of the number three. To read more about the Jewish symbolism of numbers click here.
It is also noticeable that the word used for the total corruption of the Earth (נִשְׁחָתָה) uses the same three letters (נשח), in a different order, that form the word Snake (נחש) who caused the original sin of Adam and Eve. In other words, it was one of the animals (the snake) who caused the corruption of the first man, who then led to corrupted mankind, who in turn corrupted the entire Creation, every flesh.
The root of the word ‘snake’ (נחש) also gives the words that says ‘copper’ in Hebrew (נחושת), which led to the first use of metal objects and tools, later reinforced using bronze. This is indicative of the Bronze Age and of the era when the Earth started to fill with violence. It is by mixing up different ores of metal found on earth that mankind created a new robust metal: Bronze (click here to read about the start of the Bronze Age). So, de facto, mankind interfered with the elements of Creation and ultimately corrupted it. But, as the Biblical text implies, mankind was not the sole responsible from the deviation from the divine Creation because the Earth also corrupted itself. In fact, the Earth was first to have disobeyed God's orders during the Creation (in the Third Day):
And God said: "Let the Earth sprout vegetation, herbage producing seed, and fruit-tree making fruit (עֵץ פְּרִי עֹשֶׂה פְּרִי) according to its kind, containing its own seed, upon the Earth.' And it was so.
And the Earth sprouted vegetation, herbage producing seed according to its kind, and tree making fruit (עֵץ עֹשֶׂה פְּרִי), containing its own seed, according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:11-12)
Where can it be seen that the Earth deviate from God's order? A careful comparison of the two above verses shows that, for example, God ordered that the trees would be fruit-trees themselves, meaning that the tree itself would be edible as a fruit, and not simply a tree making fruit. Man would have been able to eat the fruit and the tree, if the Creation had been according to the divine plan. But the Earth, at a time when free-will existed in all elements of Creation, diverted from God's plan. The result however pleased God because the text ultimately says that He saw it was good. Nonetheless we can see that free-will led to a corruption from God's plan, and the start of earthly sin.
The parallel between the Earth's own corruption during Creation and the corruption caused later can also be seen in the number of these verses: Genesis 1:11-12 for one and Genesis 6:11-12 for the other. This is the reason why God's punishment would not be directed at mankind only, as the only perpetrators of corruption, but at the entire Earth and what it contained. God would have to correct the ways His Creation was going wrong and stripped it from original benefits so that the corruption would be stopped at least on the created world level.
To return to the list of chronological generations from Seder Olam Revisited, click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Adar 5785 - March 2025